Enhancing capability in grape and wine research through greater international collaboration

Dr Downey, organised and convened a Tannin Summit for collaborators in California where all of the DPI’s current collaborators were able to meet, some for the first time, and to share their current research and discuss issues, challenges and priorities for future tannin research. The critical area that was identified as a priority was to extend the work undertaken by DPI and Constellation in developing a protocol for purifying condensed tannin oligomers (from dimer to decamer) such that large enough quantities of these compounds could be produced to address key research questions. These questions include the sensory character of pure tannins and their interactions with other grape and wine components as well as their evolution in wine and contributions to wine colour and mouthfeel. Dr Downey also visited several research groups in the USA to develop and expand on collaborative research opportunities. These discussions centred around future collaborative exchanges of PhD students and researchers from a number of agencies to Australia (DPI Mildura) and for DPI researchers to jointly undertake collaborative research activities in the USA during 2013. New collaborative opportunities around grape and wine tannin chemistry were identified with Dr Gavin Sacks at Cornell University.